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It's surely not comparable to Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, if only because of the team nature of hockey.

But for the 2009 world junior hockey championships, having tonight's final pit Canadian forward John Tavares against Victor Hedman of Sweden is just about the perfect script.

It's also a rematch of last year's final, of course, won by Canada. But the debate of Tavares versus Hedman for the No. 1 slot in next June's NHL draft is still ongoing, and so this becomes an intriguing game within the game.

Tavares has had the flashier tournament, but Hedman's Swedish side has been more thorough and consistent. The Swedes handled the Russians easily on New Year's Eve, and did a nice job on Saturday of handling Slovakia, the tournament darlings.

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Canada? Well, the Canadians have been involved in the two most exciting games of this competition, first against the Americans on the last day of 2008 and then in a memorable tussle with Russia on Saturday night that left Jordan Eberle forever among the ranks of clutch scorers in international hockey for Canada.

Both games were fabulously entertaining, and in each a large number of interesting sub-stories were lost in the wake of the result. On Saturday, for instance, the dazzling short-handed goal scored by Angelo Esposito, given how Esposito finally made Team Canada on his fourth attempt, was an exquisite moment of human poetry.

Still, it is undeniable that Canada, while giving up five first-period goals in two games and blowing five one-goal leads, has a lot of tidying up to do.

This Canadian team, under Pat Quinn, has a very different personality than the buttoned-down national junior teams of Brent Sutter and Craig Hartsburg. Indeed, Team Canada looks very much like the Maple Leaf teams coached by Quinn, teams that relied less on structure and more on individual ingenuity, emotion and creativity.

Those who have coached against Quinn at the NHL level will tell you his teams are both difficult to deal with, yet also vulnerable. There's an overall scheme, but Quinn's players tend to behave unpredictably within that scheme.

When it works, it's brilliant, and players like Eberle, P.K. Subban and Tavares shine.

When it doesn't work, well, it can look awful.

Canadian goalie Dustin Tokarski is catching a lot of flak for giving up nine goals in two games, but that's unfair given the wackiness going on in front of him. Just ask Curtis Joseph or Ed Belfour what it's like to play behind a Quinn-coached team. Every Canadian defenceman has been caught napping in the past two games, and when it has happened there has been no support to back them up.

Some are having trouble turning to take on forwards with speed, some are handling the puck like it's a grenade. Goodness, on Dmitry Klopov's third-period goal that put Russia ahead 5-4, rearguard Cody Goloubef was outside the shooting lane on a point shot and reached back to deflect the puck like an attacking forward.

The forwards, meanwhile, were consistently caught with two and sometimes three skaters up ice, allowing the Russians to stretch the rink with long passes. No shutdown blueline pair has emerged for Canada, and no checking line, either.

Canada beat the Russians in spite of those problems because of emotion and imagination, huge strengths all tournament for this unbeaten team.

When it mattered most, Quinn's Leaf squads were exposed by disciplined, well-prepared playoff opponents. But that doesn't mean this Canadian junior team will be similarly exposed.

This isn't a best-of-seven NHL playoff series. It's a one-game test between apprenticing teenage hockey players, and after only eight games together, Team Canada is still a work in progress with characteristics yet to be revealed.

Quinn's international sides, both pros and the under-18 side, have fared well in these gold-medal scenarios. A country hopes another will tonight.

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